In Case You Need It
by HorsesRMyAngels
Summary: Anthony DiNozzo, Senior, shows up for a suprise visit around Christmas, and learns that his son has finally "come to his senses" and swept Ziva off her feet. Before he leaves, he gives Tony something that he knows he'll need at some point.


**What I wish would happen next time DiNozzo Senior shows up. Oneshot.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own anything, just playing!**

Tony looked up from his paperwork as a hand placed a small blue velvet box down on his desk. His gaze slowly traveled upwards until it rested on the face of his estranged father. Maybe he wasn't as estranged as he used to be (they were getting better at this whole Father-son relationship thing), but their relationship was still pretty far opposite peachy.

"In case you need it," DiNozzo Senior said to his son with a knowing look, before he turned and left.

Tony watched after him for a bit, then went back to his paperwork for the case they'd just solved (the victim, a Petty officer; the culprit, a jealous wife and a hired hit man), ignoring the box that sat perched upon the edge of his desk. For once, his father hadn't been involved in their case; he'd just dropped in for a visit. Maybe it was because he was getting old, and he was tired of being alone on the holidays. Maybe he'd begun to realize how much he missed his son, although that was stretching it. The only thing Tony knew for certain, was that something had changed about his father. Perhaps it was almost losing his son in a terrorist attack, though of course he'd almost lost his son to the Plague and hadn't even known. But things were different now.

He sighed as he finally willed himself to look up at the box. He pushed his paperwork aside and reached for it. He stared at it in his hands for a moment, then took a deep breath, and opened it.

Inside lay a beautiful diamond engagement ring. Tony recognized it; it had been his mother's. He hadn't known his father had kept it. All his other wives had been given different rings, though he couldn't imagine any of them being more elegant or expensive than his mother's. His father had truly loved his mother, loved her the most. And then he'd lost her. Tony knew what that felt like, to lose the person you love the most. Although, in Tony's case, he'd been lucky enough to find her alive.

Ziva. She was the reason his father had left his mother's ring here. Tony smiled as he thought back to the events which had taken place earlier that day.

_Tony, Ziva, and McGee stood around the plasma screen next to Gibbs' desk, updating him on developments in their case, the apparent mugging-gone-wrong that led to a Petty Officer's death. Tony was giving his findings after looking into the wife's financials (his motto: always suspect the wife), explaining an uncharacteristically large payment to an account owned by a known hit man. While he was in the middle of his report, a security guard walked in, escorting a man whom Tony had neither seen nor heard from in over a year. _

"_Junior!" Anthony DiNozzo Senior greeted his son. Tony whirled around._

"_Dad? What are you doing here?"_

"_What? A man can't drop in to visit his son every once in a while?"_

_Tony was about to make a snide remark about the frequency of his father's visits, but the older man's attentions had already shifted from his son to the young woman standing next to him._

"_Ziva! Just as gorgeous as the last time I visited," he said, making his way over to his son's partner. Tony's brow furrowed as he watched his father shower his partner in compliments._

"_Good to see you again, Mr. DiNozzo," Ziva smiled, still skeptical about the reasons for his highly unexpected visit. Senior, ever the Casanova, reached out to hug her, his hands settling a little too low on her back for Tony's liking._

"_Dad, watch the hands!" Tony growled. Senior removed his hands from his son's partner as a barely noticeable blush graced her cheeks. He looked confusedly at his son for a second, before it dawned on him. He raised his eyebrows in surprise._

"_Well, it seems Junior finally came to his senses and swept this gorgeous creature of her feet." Ziva smiled as she walked to stand next to her boyfriend, her partner. McGee shot a cautious look at Gibbs, who was seated at his desk , carefully watching the melodrama that was Tony's relationships. _

"_Since when?" he continued._

"_September," Tony and Ziva answered simultaneously. Senior nodded._

"_Well, it's good to know my son has much better taste in women than I do."_

And somehow they had ended up here. His father leaving his mother's engagement ring on his desk. Tony and Ziva had only been a couple since September, just barely four months ago. They weren't there yet. It had taken them years to get to the point in the relationship they were at now; a proposal wouldn't be anywhere in the near future. But sitting here, looking at the gorgeous diamond ring, Tony smiled fondly at the image of it on Ziva's finger. One day, he promised himself, he would grow a pair and get down on one knee. But these things took time, and he wasn't going to screw this up and lose her.

He snapped the lid of the box shut just as Ziva returned from Abby's lab and sat down at her desk.

"Is he still here?" she asked, in reference to Tony's father.

"Just left," Tony replied. She nodded sadly.

"He never does stick around very long, does he?"

Tony shrugged.

"That's how he's always been." Ziva got up from her chair and made her way over to Tony's desk, sitting on the edge of it as she so often did.

"I understand. My father…he always had other things to do."

"Guess we're similar in that respect."

"We are similar in many respects, are we not, Tony?" He laughed softly, absentmindedly turning the velvet ring box over in his hands. Ziva noticed it. "And what do you have there?"

Tony embarrassedly pulled open one of his desk drawers, hid the ring in it, and locked it, faster than Ziva could blink.

"It's nothing," he insisted. Despite this, when he looked at her face, he could see the little wheels turning in her brain. He decided his only hope was to change the subject.

"So, dinner?" he asked as he grabbed his jacket and backpack. She nodded as she got up to grab her things from her desk.

"My place or yours?" she asked.

"I thought I'd take you out to eat this time." Ziva smiled as the question of what Tony was trying to keep a secret from her was pushed from the forefront of her thoughts.

As they stepped into the elevator, Tony looked over at Ziva while he recalled the words his father had spoken minutes before.

_As if there's any doubt that I'm going to need it,_ he thought, as the woman he loved smiled knowingly up at him.


End file.
